Really: Virtual
Friday, September 21st, 2012 6.30 – 10pm
Join Butler Gallery on Culture Night for an after-hours exploration of reality, fantasy and the spaces in between, with talks, film screenings, atmospheric installations and surprising interventions along the way.
6.30 pm What’s Wrong with this Picture?
The Parade Tower
Are the representations we project of ourselves too perfect, too ‘together’? What happened to messy reality? Has something gone wrong with real-life? This talk will look at some of the ideas behind how our contemporary realities are partly lived by a representation of ourselves and the ‘real’ is something that is becoming less tangible. Lynn McGrane will discuss whether these representations can become truth in their own right by looking at a range of artists working today, including Hans Op De Beeck.
7.30pm art: 21
The Parade Tower
An exclusive screening from season six of the Peabody award-winning documentary Art in the Twenty-First Century.
To watch the trailer for art:21 Season 6, click on the link below, or copy and paste into your browser window:
http://video.pbs.org/video/2183358823
9pm Etaoin Holohan Presents Black Pudding Productions: A New Radio Play
The Castle Tea Room
The wireless is indeed a magical medium – who among us didn’t at one point think there was a little person behind the grill of the speaker? Performing a radio play live, we give the listener a visual that is in opposition to the action of the story. The challenge for the audience is to push their suspension of disbelief, so that they may be transported to another time and enter the lives of our characters. They must give in to the illusion that is happening right in front of their eyes. This new play will be inspired by the ancient walls within which it ‘airs’ – a modern twist on the medieval and an exciting adventure through time and space.
Black Pudding Productions are Aoife Coghlan, Annette Flynn and Ronan Dempsey.
9.30pm Rory Grubb
The Medieval Room
Join experimental musician Rory Grubb as he rounds off the evening with haunting melodies created by instruments which are exquisitely crafted, and sometimes entirely unexpected.
Running all evening…
Hans Op de Beeck, A Selection of Video Works
Location: Butler Gallery
Hans Op de Beeck is a Belgian artist of international repute whose prodigious body of work includes sculpture, installation, video, photography, animated films, drawings, painting and short stories. His first solo exhibition in Ireland consists of four video works, including the much-acclaimed Sea of Tranquillity and the premiere of a brand new work. Op de Beeck’s work concentrates on our problematic relationship with time, space and each other. He shows the viewer non- existent, but identifiable, places, moments and characters that appear to have been taken from contemporary everyday life that emphasize the tragicomic absurdity of our postmodern existence. Irrefutably fictional, constructed and staged, these video works are extremely precise and visually astonishing.
Michael Holly, The Sand Beneath Our Feet
Location: Sallyport Cellar
Artist Michael Holly’s sculptural video installation subtly unveils images of tourism-friendly Ireland, giving visitors a chance to peek behind the curtain of these staged realities.
Gypsy Ray, The Interim Project: A Selection of Photographs of Evan’s Home
Location: Muniments Room
Gypsy Ray’s ethereal photographs of Evan’s Home capture a glimpse into the future home of Butler Gallery, as it awaits transformation.
The Art Trail: Solas Staged
An exhibition of work by participants aged 5 – 12 years who completed Solas Staged Workshops, which took place during the Kilkenny Arts Festival 2012 exploring the Hans Op de Beeck exhibition.
With thanks to artists Jean Conroy and Jenny Dunne who devised and facilitated the Solas Staged Workshops.
Culture Night at Butler Gallery is supported by
